


to know the grief

by yeswayappianway



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Assisted Suicide, Future Fic, Gen, Mercy Killing, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:20:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27430375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeswayappianway/pseuds/yeswayappianway
Summary: The smell of the Pit hangs heavy in the air. Damian can almost feel it. He looks back at Cassandra, but she’s frozen, staring at the slowly roiling green water. He can’t tell if she’s expectant or afraid.The silence is broken, not by an outside signal of attack, nor by a dramatic outburst by the occupant of the Pit, but by a faint rush of bubbles in the middle of the pool. As if someone tried to take a breath, not realizing they were underwater.Damian throws himself into the water. Cassandra is right behind him. Furiously, he grasps under the water, finding—“Richard?” Damian says frantically.
Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Damian Wayne, Cassandra Cain & Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne
Comments: 6
Kudos: 61





	to know the grief

**Author's Note:**

  * For [remiges](https://archiveofourown.org/users/remiges/gifts).



> first of all, i'm SO SORRY
> 
> second of all, this is the only scene i'm ever gonna write of an au remi and i came up with that i lovingly referred to as 'ANGST AU'. (for the record, neither of us had read dceased at the time, but i had just watched justice league dark apokolips war.) the important things to know are: a big apocalyptic event happened, and bruce died. not too long into the aftermath, dick and some other heroes went on a mission to try and fix everything, and instead almost all of them died. this is set shortly after that, and the original working title was 'angst au take 2: even more angst'. 
> 
> PLEASE mind the tags!!!! i've put more spoilery content warnings in the end notes, but the tags really cover all of them, i've just given more specifics down there.
> 
> title from [At Sunset, by Jason Shinder](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/54036/at-sunset-56d233ed46e6e) (also courtesy of remi)

The smell of the Pit hangs heavy in the air. Damian can almost feel it. He wonders if it’s because of his… exposure to it, or just what the Pit does to everyone. He looks back at Cassandra, but she’s frozen, staring at the slowly roiling green water. He can’t tell if she’s expectant or afraid. Damian refuses to name any of the emotions twisting their way up inside of his chest and into his throat. Instead, he focuses every scrap of his attention on studying the water.

The Pit continues to glow and move, an unseen source making the water bubble and lap against the edge of the rock. It’s very quiet in the cave, which Damian trusts less than if there were a commotion. Silence means that whoever has detected them entering—because he has no illusions that they managed to evade the watch of the League—is letting them be.

The silence is broken, not by an outside signal of attack, nor by a dramatic outburst by the occupant of the Pit, but by a faint rush of bubbles in the middle of the pool. As if someone tried to take a breath, not realizing they were underwater.

Damian throws himself into the water. Cassandra is right behind him. Furiously, he grasps under the water, finding—

“Richard?” Damian says frantically. He grabs the front of Richard’s suit, and Cassandra supports him from the back and between the two of them, they get Richard’s head above the water.

He doesn’t say anything at first, his head lolling to the side as he weakly coughs out green water. It glows as it leaves his mouth.

“Dick?” Cassandra asks, craning her head around to look at his eyes even as she wraps herself around his back.

Richard opens his eyes. They aren’t blue anymore, but a glowing pale green. “Damian?” He’s barely whispering, and even that sounds labored and rough.

Damian’s heart feels like it might pierce through his chest in its efforts. He should be better than this, but he can’t bring himself to feel his customary disgust. “Richard,” he says again, and leans forward to rest his head against Richard’s shoulder.

“Cass?” Damian feels Richard’s breath against his ear. “Where… where are we?”

Cassandra doesn’t answer. Damian looks up, expecting to see her using sign language, but instead sees terror in her eyes. She doesn’t let go, but she’s shaking her head.

“What is it?” Damian barks. In answer, she grabs his hand, and presses it under Richard’s jaw. 

His pulse. It’s pounding, and at first Damian wants to believe that it’s the shock of being awoken after so long. Cassandra presses her hand over his.

“It’s stopping,” she says, shakier than he’s ever heard.

“What’s stopping?” Richard asks sharply, and then drags in a rattling breath. “Cass, Damian, what’s—“

Damian knows what he’s realized. It’s not hard.

“Damian,” he says, and Damian doesn’t want to look at him. He makes himself. What’s the point of bringing Richard back if he can’t even look at him? “I died, and you put me in a Lazarus Pit.”

“Yes,” answers Damian. He won’t apologize.

Richard manages to turn his head just enough to look at Cassandra. “You let him do this?” he accuses.

Damian is about to step in, but he doesn’t need to. “No,” Cassandra says. “But I couldn't stop him. So I’m protecting my brother.”

The expressions war on Richard’s face. Damian picks out sorrow, and pride, and anger. Damian says, “It’s gotten worse. Everything has only gotten worse.”

Turning back to him, Richard opens his mouth to speak, and blood drips out. Richard had been dead for months. This blood is fresh. Damian can do nothing but stare.

Cassandra shakes her head again, the fear back in her eyes. “Dick,” she starts. “You…”

“I’m not really alive,” he says dully. “I can feel it. I’ll be gone again, and it only gets worse every time someone uses a Pit.” Damian wants to argue, but Richard is not unversed in the ways of the Lazarus Pits. He probably knows as much as Damian—most of Damian’s knowledge is from after he came to live in Gotham. Grandfather didn’t like anyone knowing how the Pits worked, even his supposed heir.

Damian is shaking his head before he realizes it. “No, we’ll find a way. We’ll stabilize you, find a way to make the effects permanent.”

Richard is looking at him, the blood continuing to drip down from his lip, and when Damian has to look away, he sees some of the wounds in Richard's body have opened again. 

“Dami,” he murmurs. “Look at me.” Damian does. “I don’t want this. I _didn’t_ want this, and I know why you did it, but you don’t get to make this decision for me.”

Everything is blurry, and Damian realizes he’s crying. “I can’t,” he says, and stops to clear his throat. “I can’t do this without you,” Damian says. His throat is tight and he feels like he’s choking. Managing a look at Cassandra, Damian realizes that she’s sobbing as well. It’s silent.

“You can,” Richard says, and even his voice is losing its color. He’s looking very intently at Damian. “You can, you have everyone else, you have your siblings, you have Jon, you have the whole rest of the world.”

Cassandra is the one who answers. “Not the same.”

“Come here,” Richard says to her. She shuffles around to his side, sending ripples through the pool, one strong arm holding him up. Richard manages to tilt his chin up just enough to press his lips to her forehead. “I love you, Cass.” Her tears mix with the Lazarus water on his face, and it gleams in the flat green of the water and his eyes.

Cassandra straightens back up, and looks at Damian. It’s his turn but he doesn’t know how to do this.

“Dami,” Richard whispers again. “Do you know how long I have?”

“No,” Damian answers. “It could be minutes, it could be days.”

Richard closes his eyes. “Then I need to ask you for something, and Damian,” he opens them again. The green glow is exactly as strong as it had been before, and Damian is struck with the thought that perhaps the Pit would keep him alive even as his body failed. If perhaps that’s what it’s doing right now. “Damian, I’m so, so sorry.” He sounds like he’s going to break, and it’s the most alive Richard has seemed this whole time. “I need you and Cass to get me out of the Pit, far enough away that I can’t end up back in it, even if something happens.” He takes a deep, shuddering, horrible breath. Damian can hear the rasp of something in his chest. “And I need you to kill me.”

There’s never been a sentence Damian had wanted to hear spoken aloud less than that. Damian would trade years, _decades_ of his grandfather’s abuse and scorn not to have heard that come out of Richard’s mouth.

But it did.

Damian looks at him. Even with the blood and the water running down his face, and the blank green glow, he’s looking at Damian with regret and love. That’s what it is, and Damian owes it to him to acknowledge that. Damian created this problem, and so it is his responsibility to end it. And even if he hadn’t felt that duty, Richard had asked.

Damian lurches forward and wraps him in a hug. He can feel Cassandra’s arms around them both. “I’m sorry,” Damian stammers.

“It’s okay,” Richard soothes. “It’s okay.”

Nothing is okay.

Finally, Damian pulls back. He looks at Cassandra, who nods back at him. She hasn’t stopped crying. Damian wades to Richard’s other side, and lopsidedly, they drag his deadweight out of the pool and up into the mouth of the cave. There’s a trail of water running off them, but Damian barely notices.

“How did you get me here?” Richard rasps. “Can you take me back?”

Damian nods, and then out loud says, “Yes.”

“Good.” They put him down on the ground, and he feels like a corpse again already, cold and unmoving, but the green glow out of his eyes is steady. “If you can, bring me back to Gotham. If not… just not in here.”

_But it won’t be_ you, Damian thinks. _We’re not bringing_ you _anywhere_. He wants to rage, or cry, or both.

Richard had died wearing the Nightwing suit, and he’s still wearing it. They hadn’t had time for funeral rites according to anyone’s tradition. The emblem of the suit is somehow untouched, and before Damian had thought it a cruel mockery. Now, he finds the familiar blue comforting as he lays a hand on it.

Cassandra leans down, grips him in a hug that’s more of a stranglehold, and then says, “I’ll make sure we can get out.” She kneels down, touches Richard’s forehead once, and then walks up the cave passage.

“Dami,” Richard says. “I never told B this, but I think we made the best Batman and Robin.” He smiles, and despite the setting, despite his deadened face and everything that has happened, Damian feels his spirit life. He takes a deep breath, the first it feels like he’s been able to in months.

“I love you,” Damian says. He regrets not having told his father that, but maybe this trip won’t have been a waste if it meant he could at least tell Richard.

“Love you too, Damian,” Richard says.

Damian doesn’t carry a sword anymore. He still has them, and he uses them, but he’s accepted that being Robin means something different than a sword. He does have a knife, though. It’s mostly seen use for escaping bonds and cutting pieces of evidence. It’s sharp enough. Damian draws the knife.

It’s silent in the cave when Damian wipes the blade off, and closes Richard’s eyes. The green shines through his eyelids for a moment, and then fades out. Damian resheathes the knife in his boot, and begins getting Richard’s body into a position he can carry.

**Author's Note:**

> spoilerful content notes: damian uses the lazarus pit to bring dick back, dick realizes it hasn't brought him back to life permanently or well, and he asks damian to kill him rather than live in this half-life state. damian does.
> 
> here is what i sent remi afterwards:  
> im imagining damian coming back to the cave and he walks in and tim is at the computer and damian says "Dra-- timothy." and tim turns around in shock and sees damian just like frozen and more devastated than tim has ever seen him, and then damian just kind of falls to his knees and starts sobbing as tim runs over and holds him
> 
> i also think after damian (and cass) come back with dick's body, everyone realizes what happened and jason is like 'fuck i should give you a lecture about how irresponsible that was but i just can't' and they finally have a funeral for dick (and, metaphorically, for... everyone and the world)
> 
> again, I'M /SO SORRY/, i truly do take psychic damage every time i even think about this au, but i decided other people should suffer with me, as is traditional in fandom


End file.
